Thursday, October 11, 2012

NYT reviews Witt, "Lincoln's Code"

Today's New York Times reviews Lincoln's Code, by John Fabian Witt (Yale Law School). Reviewer Jennifer Schuessler is particularly interested in how the book relates to "the past decade’s intense partisan wrangling over the conduct
of the war on terror." Here's a taste:

Mr. Witt is a Quaker school alumnus (and son of a conscientious
objector) who describes his views on war as somewhere “in the muddy
middle, along with Lincoln and Obama.” He has largely stayed neutral in
the post-Sept. 11 legal wrangling over torture, detentions, drone strikes and other tactics in the war on terror.

“I don’t think the research I’ve done warrants signing on to briefs on either side,” he said.

But his work, he said, does contradict the notion, asserted in accounts like Jane Mayer’s best-selling book “The Dark Side,”
that the Bush administration turned its back on centuries of unbroken
American respect for the international laws of war.